Day 8. Music to My Ears

“Let Your Music Play” 4×4, oil on canvas, framed

This is a painting of St. Cecilia, patron saint of musicians.

But the story of how she found her way onto this tiny canvas is a longer, more winding one—mostly not mine to tell, so I’ll try to stay in my lane.

My husband Kelly, as most of you know, is a musician. Not a pull-out-the-guitar-at-the-bonfire kind of musician, but a classically trained, up-at-5-a.m.-every-single-day-to-practice, watching-virtuosos-on-YouTube-until-the-cows-come-home kind of musician. People ask me all the time if I get serenaded by heavenly music all day long, to which I reply: yes, indeed—whether I want it or not. (Occasionally I do prefer to wake up naturally rather than to classical guitar, but only occasionally.)

Kelly’s love affair with the guitar has had many ups and downs. It’s been both the thing he had to give up when life got hard and the thing he clung to when life got hardest. He’s been in rooms where rigid gatekeepers listened closely (eagerly?) for an askew note, and he’s been in rooms where there is no such thing as a misstep—where it’s all just jamming.

About two years ago, he started wearing a St. Cecilia medal around his neck. To me, it represented many things, but among them was his newfound approach to music—that it is a lit lamp, and who among us would put a lamp under a bushel basket? Or keep it confined to that one room of the house where the guitars live? Over the past couple of years, he’s been playing everywhere: local restaurants, bars, events, our living room sofa, the porch, the gallery, church. It really does give light to the whole house.

I’ve been thinking about saints, and how even the non-religious are often intrigued by them—by the idea that there are those who have gone before us whose lives somehow speak to the potential of our own. That sensing a kindred spirit across space and time can give us a feeling of community, one that helps us do what feels impossible alone. That is certainly true of my 31 in 31 community.

At the last minute, I added a starling to this painting—partly because it’s a songbird, and partly because would it even be a painting at all if it didn’t include a bird?

It makes me wonder: what symbols, stories, or figures do you carry —quietly or visibly—for comfort, guidance, or courage? And who are the companions, seen or unseen, that help keep you going when you might otherwise stop?